Beruflich Dokumente
Kultur Dokumente
Tees Archaeology
Contents 1. Summary ............................................................................................................3 2. The Ingleby Barwick find....................................................................................4 2.1 The site...........................................................................................................4 2.2 Discovery........................................................................................................4 2.3 The excavation and finds.................................................................................6 2.4 The significance of the find..............................................................................9 2.4.1 Date ........................................................................................................9 2.4.2 Location..................................................................................................9 2.4.3 Finds .......................................................................................................9 2.4.4 Burial traditions.......................................................................................9 2.4.5 Monumentality ........................................................................................9 3. Assessment of the results of the excavation .......................................................10 3.1 Site archive ...................................................................................................10 3.1.1 Excavation records................................................................................10 3.1.2 Specialist reports...................................................................................11 3.1.3 Finds .....................................................................................................11 3.1.4 Administration.......................................................................................11 3.2 Assessment of the human remains .................................................................11 3.2.1 Osteoarchaeological report (Appendix 1, p. 15 )....................................11 3.2.2 Stable isotope research (Appendix 4, p. 26)...........................................11 3.4 Assessment of the environmental potential of the site (Appendix 2, p. 18) .....11 3.5 Assessment of the finds .................................................................................12 3.5.1 Conservation report (Appendix 3, p. 22)................................................12 3.5.2 Research potential (Appendix 5, p. 27) ..................................................12 4. Project proposal................................................................................................13 5. Project aims and objectives ...............................................................................14 5.1 Dating...........................................................................................................14 5.2 Population study ...........................................................................................14 5.3 Examination of the status of the individuals and the site.................................14 5.4 Examination of the cultural transition represented by the find ........................14 5.5 Dissemination of the results of the project; archiving .....................................14 6. Methods statement............................................................................................15 6.1 Dating (objective 5.1) ...................................................................................15 6.2 Examination of the human remains (objective 5.2).........................................15 6.2.1 Osteoarchaeological report....................................................................15 6.2.2 Stable isotope research ..........................................................................15 6.3 Examination of the finds (objective 5.3) ........................................................15 6.3.1 Metal and jet objects .............................................................................15 6.3.2 Stone objects and pottery ......................................................................16 6.3.3 Research and reconstruction..................................................................16 6.4 Comparative study and synthesis (for status and cultural transition, 5.4) ........16 6.5 Dissemination (objective 5.5) ........................................................................16 References................................................................................................................17
1.
Summary
A salvage excavation was carried out on a building site south of Stockton at the end of 1996. Five individual burials were found, together with a wooden cist containing the remains of two other adults, and a secondary deposit in one of the graves. The burials were associated with Beaker pottery, and two of the individual burials were accompanied by high-status finds of stone, jet and copper alloy, which suggest a date in the Early Bronze Age. Burials of this period are extremely rare in the region, and it has hitherto been assumed that lowland sites such as this one were unoccupied in the EBA. The finds assemblage is unparalleled in northern England. The collection of metal objects, and the presence at the same site of single-grave burial and the communal deposition of excarnated remains, makes this a discovery of European significance. The find has the potential to throw light on the date of settlement of this area, on the change from communal to individual burial traditions, on networks of trade, exchange and cultural contact, and on the Neolithic / Bronze Age transition. A programme of post-excavation work is proposed: this will lead to the publication of a journal article and a popular leaflet on the site and the transfer of the finds to the local museum.
2.
2.2 Discovery
Builders cutting a new road found human bones in their spoil on Friday 29th November 1996, and the police and Tees Archaeology were called to the site. Initial examination found that two individual burials (Sk. 1 & 2), probably crouched, had been disturbed by the JCB (Fig. 3); all of the bone of Sk.1 and much of Sk. 2 was recovered from the spoil heap. A piece of Beaker with encircling incised lines was picked up at the same time. Clearance of the surrounding area revealed a large oval pit which contained a rectangular block of fill defined by dark stains, interpreted as the remains of planks. Excavation of this timber structure uncovered two groups of human
Figure 1 Location of the site and of other prehistoric finds from Ingleby Barwick
bones (Sk. 3 & 4), separated by a thin layer of soil; each contained a skull and a few long bones, and one (Sk. 4), a pelvis. These individuals may have been excarnated before being placed in the timber cist. When the fill of the construction pit was removed a group of four stakeholes was found; these defined the edge of the presumed plank-built burial chamber. Near this pit the fill of an individual grave was seen in the section of the road cutting (Fig. 2). This grave contained the skeleton of an adult (Sk. 5) in a crouched position; at
the feet was a fine polished stone mace-head. This is made of a micro-diorite or gabbro, and has a central shaft-hole.
cist
construction pit
mace-head
Figure 2 Part of the site during excavation. In the foreground is the single burial Sk. 5: the road cutting has removed part of the pelvis and the left heel, but missed the mace-head at the feet. In the background is the excavated construction pit of the timber cist.
between any of the graves. The pit containing the cist was markedly deeper than the individual graves. The plough-damage appears to have moved material from the graves in a NW-SE direction. Some bone from Sk. 7 and Sk. 8 was found to have been moved up to 0.7m to the south-east from the burials, and it is thought that Beaker sherds found just south-east of the grave of Sk. 5 (the mace-head burial) were formerly in that grave. An unusual feature of two burials (Sk. 5 and Sk. 7) was the presence in each fill of a single lump of a heavy rounded dark brown mineral, which is thought to be haematite. This is not a material which is naturally found in the area. One grave (Sk. 7) was badly disturbed by later activity; the other was a richly-equipped burial (Sk. 6) with a secondary deposit of an adult skull and long bones (Sk. 8) within the fill. This secondary deposit was unaccompanied. Excavation of the equipped burial was carried out on site as far as was practicable. Three V-perforated jet buttons were found near the neck, and a plain copper alloy bangle on one forearm. The discovery of large amounts of copper-alloy material around the hands, combined with short winter working days and frosty nights on site, led to a decision to remove the torso for excavation at the conservation laboratory in the Department of Archaeology, Durham University. A block of soil was frozen solid in situ with dry ice and taken away for Xray examination. The X-ray revealed a second bangle on the other arm, together with a number of tubular metal beads. The block was excavated in the laboratory by Jennifer Jones. In this process the two bangles were removed, and 41 tubular beads, 25 Vperforated jet buttons, one biconical jet bead and 79 very small jet rings were found. These small rings were found in a fairly restricted area near the left shoulder. During excavation it was noticed that the heads of Sk. 2, 5, 6, and 7 appeared to be aligned on the highest point of the site. This is not a pronounced feature, but there is an appreciable fall for some distance in all directions from this point, which is just southeast of the cist. The excavated area is very unlikely to represent the full extent of the burial ground. However, no burials were seen in the road section opposite the cist and the mace-head burial, nor were any features visible between the buildings being erected on the west side of the new road. Further expansion of the site to the east was not possible because of buildings and stockpiles, but this area had in any case been very significantly disturbed but construction work and it is unlikely that burials as close to the surface as those examined by Tees Archaeology would have survived. Despite keen interest from the building workers, there were no reports of other bones being found. The Windmill Fields find has raised a good deal of local interest, and has been taken up by the makers of Julian Richards new BBC television series Meet the Ancestors. Because of their interest, the high-precision dating of bones from the equipped burials has already begun.
3.
Figure 4 The Migdale Hoard. This group of jet and bronze objects was found in a cist at Loch Migdale, Sutherland, before 1901. Parallels with the Windmill Fields find include the ribbed and plain bracelets (3-10), the tubular beads (11-53), and the conical jet buttons (62-67). From Inventaria Archaeologica, GB. 26, 19
3.1.2 Specialist reports A report on the environmental samples was commissioned immediately after excavation was completed. Other specialists have supplied the assessment reports included in the appendices or have been consulted informally. 3.1.3 Finds The metal and jet finds are at the Conservation Laboratory at the Department of Archaeology, Durham University. The human bones are at the offices of Suffolk County Archaeology Service, pending further work. All other material is at the offices of Tees Archaeology. 3.1.4 Administration Assessment reports from specialists, some documentary source material and two files of correspondence and related material are kept by Tees Archaeology.
4.
Project proposal
It is proposed to carry out a programme of post-excavation work on the material and information recovered from Windmill Fields. This will result in the publication of an article on the find and its significance for studies of the late Neolithic and Early Bronze Age in the north of England, and in the production of a free leaflet about the find for local distribution. The finds will be conserved and transferred to Stockton on Tees Museums Service.
5.
5.1 Dating
It is intended to date the burials as precisely as possible, because of their association with important finds, and so that the period of use of the burial ground can be judged.
6.
Methods statement
for possible surface treatments. All of the beads will be analysed by XRF for information about alloys and manufacture. The conservation of the jet objects will be completed, and non-destructive analysis will be carried out to try to establish whether or not the material is jet. The buttons will be compared with other groups from the region, such as the Street House collection. Work will be carried out to reconstruct possible forms for the clothing and the jewellery of its owner. 6.3.2 Stone objects and pottery The sources of the stone used for the mace-head, and of the ?haematite lumps found in grave fills, will be investigated by non-destructive means, and parallels will be sought from other areas and contexts. It is unlikely that a certain identification of the source of the stone mace-head can be identified without drilling a sample or taking a thin section; it is not proposed that either of these should be done. The pottery will be examined by Blaise Vyner, and the small quantity of flint by Peter Rowe. 6.3.3 Research and reconstruction Parallels for the burials and the grave goods will be sought. The presence of relatively rare high-status objects with two of the people in individual graves shows that this is an unusual group of people. Research on the dress and jewellery of the person buried with the copper-alloy and jet objects will also be carried out, for comparison with known parallels from the continent (eg. Ukrainian examples, Barber 1991, 256). This work will be of considerable value in the examination of the status of one of the individuals buried at Ingleby Barwick, in comparative work, and for the eventual presentation of the results of the Windmill Fields excavation.
6.4 Comparative study and synthesis (for status and cultural transition, 5.4)
Information gathered in the processes described above, together with the site data, will form the basis of the descriptive part of the final site report. Parallels and comparative sites will be sought, particularly where there are similar finds, and where there is evidence of similar processes of cultural transition. Comparisons will be drawn with known sites where excarnation was practiced, such as the Neolithic mortuary monument at Street House, about 30km to the east of Ingleby Barwick (Vyner 1984).
References
Adams, M, & Carne, P, 1995 Excavations at Site P, Village 3, Ingleby Barwick, Cleveland, DAJ 11, 19-33 Anderson, J, 1901 Proc Soc Ant Scot XXXV, 266 Anderson, S, unpub. The human skeletal remains from Walworth Barrow, Andover; report for Test Valley Archaeological Trust / Hampshire County Museums Service ASUD 1996 An archaeological evaluation at Ingleby Barwick, Village 4, Fields 16, 18, 19. Unpublished evaluation report by Archaeological Services University of Durham, ref. 415 ASUD 1997 Little Maltby Farm, Ingleby Barwick, Teesside. Unpublished evaluation report by Archaeological Services University of Durham, ref. 434 Barber, E, 1991 Prehistoric Textiles: the Development of Cloth in the Neolithic and Bronze Ages, Princeton UP, USA Cameron, A, n.d. The Human Bones from Wilsford Down, Salisbury Plain, AML Report 4488 Cameron, A, unpub. Report in AML site file Cornwall, I, 1976 In Vatcher, F and Vatcher, H, Proc Prehist Soc 42: 263-292 Dawes, J, 1979 In Dent, J S, Yorks Archaeol J 51, 23-39 Dawes, J, 1984 In Watts, L and Rahtz, P, Cowlam Wold round barrows, York University Archaeological Publications No. 3 Denston, C, 1968 In Stead, I, Yorks Archaeol J 40: 129-42 Denston, C, 1976 Human bones, in Petersen, F, The Excavation of an Early Bronze Age cemetery at Pin Farm, Gazeley, Procs Suffolk Inst Archaeol 33 (1): 1946 Denston, C, 1978 In Martin, E, Procs. Cambridge Antiq Soc 1978: 1-21 Fawcett, 1938 In Clifford, EM, Proc Prehist Soc 4: 214-18 Heslop, D H, 1984 Initial excavations at Ingleby Barwick, Cleveland, DAJ 1, 23-34 Jelley, D, 1984 The jet buttons, in Vyner 1984, 177-182 Marsden, B, 1982 Notes on bones in Derbys Archaeol J 102: 23-32 Mays, S, 1988a AML Report 98/88 Mays, S, 1988b AML Report 110/88 McKinley, J, forthcoming? Report on skeletons from Twyford Down (M3 Bar End to Compton) Powers, R, Brothwell, D, Newell, R, & Cornwall, I, 1967 in Proc Prehist Soc 33 Parker-Pearson, M, 1993 Bronze Age Britain, Batsford/English Heritage Sockett, E, 1971 A Bronze Age barrow at Mount Pleasant, near Normanby, Yorks Archaeol J 43, 33-38 Spratt, DA, 1992 Prehistoric and Roman Archaeology of North-East Yorkshire, CBA Res Rep 104 Vyner, BE, 1984 The Excavation of a Neolithic Cairn at Street House, Loftus, Cleveland, Proc Prehist Soc 50, 151-195 Vyner, BE, 1988 The Street House Wossit: the excavation of a late Neolithic and Early Bronze Age palisaded ritual monument at Street House, Loftus, Cleveland, Proc Prehist Soc 54, 173-122 Watts, S, 1992 An investigation into the composition of shale to determine factors affecting the stability of archaeological shale artefacts (unpublished dissertation for MA in Conservation of Artefacts, Dept. of Archaeology, University of Durham) Wells, C, 1977 In Donaldson, P, Antiq J. 62: 197-231 Wells, C, 1982 In Green, C, et al., Procs Dorset Nat Hist and Archaeol Soc104: 39-58 Wells, C, 1984 In Green, C and Rollo-Smith, S, Proc Prehist Soc 50: 255-318 Whittle, A, 1997 Europe in the Neolithic: the Creation of New Worlds, Cambridge